The Stranger in the Mirror

by Laura and Allegra

Someone in an online forum asked people:

[Do you] look in the mirror, see the body of the host[...] and have a strange sensation, like you don't recognize it, because[...] you're different in your mind?

Yes. We've been at this multi thing a long time now.

Putting aside the host/alter issue is difficult, as it's a hot-button for us, but we'll do our best to answer the original question. Accepting what the body looks like is a challenge, even for singletons. The media has people so conditioned that we have to look like a celebrity that it's no surprise that so many people have body issues. We know that we do.

Factor in being multi and body-sharing, and things become even more difficult. Our body is 5'2" and about 120 pounds. For you metric-oriented folks, that's 152.48cm and 54.431kg. (Thanks to http://www.metric-conversions.org/.) Our five bigs are each three to five inches taller than this. And don't get us started on the body's lack of frontage.

Our males are actually less bothered by the body than some of our females are. Sure, Joseph (age 8.5) wishes he could pee standing up, but we all know that our body is merely a container that belongs equally to all of us. It has no bearing on who any of us are as people, just as it has no bearing on the collective self that the outside world deals with.

We are who we are, regardless of what we look like. And self-acceptance is the key to being at peace with this.